


the lowest of the low (but i like you anyway)

by amazingsantiago



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: (kind of), AU, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 08:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21096374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazingsantiago/pseuds/amazingsantiago
Summary: Jake Peralta is a cop. Amy Santiago is a defence attorney. Surprisingly, they hit it off.





	the lowest of the low (but i like you anyway)

Jake’s day has already got off to an exceptionally _crappy_ start.

First, his alarm didn’t go off. Then, when he woke up with five minutes to get ready and get out the apartment, he remembered he forgot to pay his bills and had to take the quickest (and coldest) shower in the world. If he had time he’d call the Guinness Book of World Records. (It’s his childhood dream to be in the Guinness Book of World Records). But he doesn’t have time. He has to be in court in – he checks his phone – two and a half minutes.

Speaking of court, the final nail in the coffin of his terrible day – Rosa Diaz, the defence attorney assigned to his latest case, the _only_defence attorney he can tolerate enough to have a beer with after a long day of questioning, decided to take a three month trip to Argentina to find her boyfriend, an ex-cop by the name of Pimento who went slightly insane after a long undercover op. Meaning he has to deal with one of Rosa’s colleagues all day. He shudders at the thought. He hopes it’s not that slimeball Rosa refers to as ‘The Vulture’, aptly named because he swoops in and steals all her dopest cases. Or Hitchock, who is totally incompetent and has famously never won a case in his entire forty year career. Nobody knows how he still has a job.

In fact, he hates pretty much every defence attorney he’s ever had the misfortune of coming up against. They’re the lowest of the low. Jake’s job is to catch the bad guys. Defence attorneys let them go free. Even when it’s obvious they’ve done the thing they’re accused of.

There was that one attorney last year though – Sophia Perez. She was gorgeous, smart and loved _Die Hard_. They dated for a few months, but it would never have worked out long-term. Cops and defence attorneys are simply incompatible.

He’s sweating when he arrives at the court building, having ran about fifteen blocks because there was some protest on the Subway and of course traffic was a nightmare on the one day of the week he didn’t have to be at the precinct and actually needed to be somewhere on time.

There’s a dark-haired woman in a grey pantsuit waiting for him in the foyer, presumably Diaz’s replacement. He’s never seen her before so she must be new. Desperate to make a good impression so she won’t be too hard on him in there, he paints a friendly smile onto his face.

“Detective Jake Peralta,” he introduces himself.

“Amy Santiago,” she responds, shaking his hand and _wow_, her handshake is firm. “I took a seminar,” she explains like she can read his mind.

He suddenly has a million questions. Where do you take a seminar on handshakes? _Why_? How long did it last? Etc. etc. But before he can ask any of them, they’re being called into court and they’re suddenly enemies. Rival sports players staring each other down. Animals fighting over food in the wild. His only mission is to send her client to prison.

Which, as it turns out, is a lot more difficult than he thought.

She is very thorough. She’s combed through every detail of the case (an impressive feat, considering she was only assigned last minute), picked out the gaps in the evidence, presented the jury with a new alibi and even underlined Jake’s spelling errors with red pen. As she questions him, he begins to doubt whether he even believes the case he built up against this guy anymore and finds himself wishing Rosa had stayed in the country. Hell, Santiago is so good, he wishes _Hitchcock_ were here.

Inevitably, she gets her client off scot-free and Jake would be appalled if he wasn’t so impressed (and, to be honest, a little turned on).

Then he remembers she’s a defence attorney, which means she’s basically Satan, and he can’t have sex with Satan. He forces himself to remember how it ended with Sophia, how she broke up with him after he said “I love you” and she told him she didn’t love him back. It was cold-_blooded_.

He heads to the nearest bar, in serious need of some Scotch to forget about his crappy day, his crappy love life and the crappy defence attorney who wiped away several days of tough police work.

Of course she’s at the bar when he walks in.

And of course the only free seat is next to her at the bar.

Cursing the universe, he sits down, orders his drink and tries to ignore her. He really does. They both know her client was guilty. But she somehow used her slimy lawyer ways to convince the jury that the evidence wasn’t enough to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that he did it. It was deplorable. Yet, for some reason, he can’t ignore her.

“I don’t like defence attorneys,” he says, setting the record straight nice and early. “I think you all suck.”

“I think cops suck,” she responds, valiantly sticking up for herself. “You’re corrupt, you arrest innocent people, you’re way too trigger-happy and you’re always late to court.”

He rolls his eyes. “Today was an exception. My alarm didn’t go off.”

“You don’t have a back-up alarm?” She scoffs. “That’s just asking for trouble.”

He rolls his eyes again. 

“The rest of my points stand.”

“The NYPD has its issues. Lots of them,” he agrees.

“Then why did you become a cop?” She probes. It’s not hard to see why she’s so good at her job. She’s easy to talk to and he finds himself opening up to her, about being raised by a single mom and wanting to protect her.

“Also I love _Die Hard_,” he adds at the end of his heartfelt speech.

Now is Amy’s turn to roll her eyes. “Alright, John McClane, I was about to say how sweet your reason for becoming a cop was and you ruined it.”

“Damn,” he curses half-heartedly.

She laughs, tucking her hair behind both ears at the same time.

“Why did you decide to join Satan’s Army then?” He questions, nudging her playfully.

“My parents are cops. My grandfather was a cop, too. My brother David joined the Academy my Senior Year of High School and I don’t know, I just… wanted to help people in another way, you know?”

“I get it,” he replies. “I mean, I _don’t_ get it. Your job is literally to reverse everything I do, but I get that you’re doing the right thing. Like a necessary evil.”

“Thanks. I suppose I should buy you a drink since I kicked your butt back there. You’re probably thirsty.”

“My butt would love another drink,” he grins, making her laugh again. And even more so than the alcohol, he loves that sound. He wants to hear it again. He wants to hear it again every day for the rest of his life. Which is crazy because of their jobs and what happened with Sophia and the fact that they’ve only just met, but it also feels right. Really right. “My butt would also love to go on a date with you,” he bites the bullet and, of all the ways he’s ever asked a pretty girl out, mentioning his butt is a technique he’s never used before, but Amy’s smiling, which he takes to mean it has been successful.

“My butt would like that, too,” she confirms.

“Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool,” he murmurs, sipping the drink the bartender just slid his way.

They end up hanging out and chatting and laughing until the bar closes and the security guy has to tell them to leave.

It turns out, for a defence attorney, she’s not that bad. In fact, she’s actually pretty great. He discovers that she has seven (_seven_!) brothers, is Cuban and is deathly allergic to dogs. He explains to her why he loves _Die Hard_ so much, that the Mets are the second love of his life and that he is allergic to bees and wasps. He reminds her how much he dislikes defence attorneys every second sentence.

Outside the bar, she rises to her tiptoes and kisses him. “How do you feel about them now?” She asks coyly, biting her lip.

“You’re certainly changing my mind,” he teases, leaning in for another kiss. Feeling bold, he asks if she’d like to come back to his place. “If you wanna take things slow that’s totally fine,” he quickly amends because he thinks this could be Good and he doesn’t want to ruin it already.

“Normally my boring lawyer brain would tell me to take things slow, but,” she pauses, then repeats his words, “you’re certainly changing my mind.”

As they climb into a taxi, grinning at each other like idiots, he can’t help but think his exceptionally crappy day has turned out… well, not crappy at all.

**Author's Note:**

> this is something kinda different for me so let me know what you think! :)


End file.
